An Interest In:
Web News this Week
- March 28, 2024
- March 27, 2024
- March 26, 2024
- March 25, 2024
- March 24, 2024
- March 23, 2024
- March 22, 2024
October 16, 2012 09:16 pm GMT
Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OjW6YBEyv7w/
How To Spot A Misleading Statistic: Twitters Curious Political Ad Study
Statistics are everywhere these days, and it's difficult to know which ones to take seriously. Occasionally, a "report" comes out that's so misleading it presents a teachable moment on how to spot a bad statistic. Last week, Twitter made headlines for claims that users who are exposed to their political advertisements, in the form of promoted tweets, are about twice as likely to visit a campaign donation page than the "average" Internet user. However, Twitter users are also more likely to be from a educated voting demographic and, more importantly, prior research on these kinds of non-randomized advertising campaigns show that the results can be exaggerated by as much as 2000%. Moreover, using percentages, rather than actual numbers, is a well-known technique in disguising poor results (i.e. if only 1 in a million users normally visit a website, and the ad gets one more person to visit, its "doubled" the visitors).Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OjW6YBEyv7w/
Share this article:
Tweet
View Full Article
Techcrunch
TechCrunch is a leading technology blog, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news.More About this Source Visit Techcrunch